Thursday, January 13, 2011

Authors@Google: Tim Ferriss - The Four Hour Body

Seriously? I'm sure it's a not a coincidence that the book is called The Four Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman (you know, since he's the author of The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated). I mean, geez, who doesn't want to be superhuman AND have incredible sex.

Here's a good review of the book: The 4-Hour Body: 60 Percent of The Time it Works Every Time! This review is from Beyond Growth, a cool blog, check it out.

Here is my favorite claim: How Tim gained 34 pounds of muscle in 28 days, without steroids, and in four hours of total gym time. [We'll assume it was a different before and after than the one above - there is not a 34 lb muscle increase there.]

So let's do the math.

Protein contains 4 Kcal/gram; there are 28.4 grams in an ounce; 16 oz in a pound; so 4*28.4*16 = roughly 1817 Calories.

1 lb of muscle = 1817 calories. 34 lbs of muscle = 61,778 calories. Then we divide this by 28 days and we have 4,250 calories a day. So Tim consumed at least 2206 calories a day MORE THAN he needs to maintain bodyweight while working out and living his life. But wait, he was in the gym for only FOUR TOTAL HOURS.

Again, we are expected to believe that fours hours total over 28 days was enough to trigger 34 lbs of muscle growth? I suppose he documented all this with before and after pictures, measurements, and blood tests, all of which independently observed and date verified?

To save you some time, I'm going to answer the first three questions (see below) for you: NO, NO, and NO. [Well, ok, with steroids and other drugs you can do all of those things.]
AtGoogleTalks | January 11, 2011

Thinner, bigger, faster, stronger... which 150 pages will you read?

Is it possible to:

  • Reach your genetic potential in 6 months?
  • Sleep 2 hours per day and perform better than on 8 hours?
  • Lose more fat than a marathoner by bingeing?
Indeed, and much more. This is not just another diet and fitness book.

The 4-Hour Body is the result of an obsessive quest, spanning more than a decade, to hack the human body. It contains the collective wisdom of hundreds of elite athletes, dozens of MDs, and thousands of hours of jaw-dropping personal experimentation. From Olympic training centers to black-market laboratories, from Silicon Valley to South Africa, Tim Ferriss, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The 4-Hour Workweek, fixated on one life-changing question:

For all things physical, what are the tiniest changes that produce the biggest results?

Thousands of tests later, this book contains the answers for both men and women.

From the gym to the bedroom, it's all here, and it all works.

YOU WILL LEARN (in less than 30 minutes each):
* How to lose those last 5-10 pounds (or 100+ pounds) with odd combinations of food and safe chemical cocktails.
* How to prevent fat gain while bingeing (X-mas, holidays, weekends)
* How to increase fat-loss 300% with a few bags of ice
* How Tim gained 34 pounds of muscle in 28 days, without steroids, and in four hours of total gym time
* How to sleep 2 hours per day and feel fully rested
* How to produce 15-minute female orgasms
* How to triple testosterone and double sperm count
* How to go from running 5 kilometers to 50 kilometers in 12 weeks
* How to reverse "permanent" injuries
* How to add 150+ pounds to your lifts in 6 months
* How to pay for a beach vacation with one hospital visit

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are more than 50 topics covered, all with real-world experiments, many including more than 200 test subjects.

You don't need better genetics or more discipline. You need immediate results that compel you to continue.

That's exactly what The 4-Hour Body delivers.


About the Author
TIMOTHY FERRISS, nominated as one of Fast Company's "Most Innovative Business People of 2007," is author of the #1 New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeekbestseller, The 4-Hour Workweek, which has been published in 35 languages.

Wired magazine has called Tim "The Superman of Silicon Valley" for his manipulation of the human body. He is a tango world record holder, former national kickboxing champion (Sanshou), guest lecturer at Princeton University, and faculty member at Singularity University, based at NASA Ames Research Center.

When not acting as a human guinea pig, Tim enjoys speaking to organizations ranging from Nike to the Harvard School of Public Health.




5 comments:

Chryss Palace said...

The sex stuff (15 minute orgasm) is what got me to buy The 4-Hour Body.

There is some good stuff in those two chapters - useful illustrations and a fairly straightforward approach from his teachers and trainers – but its really just an introduction – I’m guessing this one of the topics in the book he has researched the least.


If the orgasm chapters are an example of Tim’s 80/20 rule – what he thinks is the 20% that produces 80% of the result - then I’d say what is in the book is closer to 5%, not 20% - there is a lot more available for both parties than what he describes. I’m guessing that as Tim’s research continues he’ll eventually wind up looking at Lafayette Morehouse, the original source of this information.

For people who’ve never seen the information Tim is presenting, it's a fast way to get started on a very very fun journey.

Anonymous said...

I thought I'd let you know that your hotlinked image has been changed.

william harryman said...

thanks Anon, I guess Mr. Ferriss was miffed that someone called his bluff with actual math - the picture was his before and after photos.

Drew Baye said...

A pound of muscle is not 3,500 calories. Maybe a third of that. You've got it confused with a pound of fat.

william harryman said...

You're right Drew - my mistake - actual numbers:

Protein contains 4 Kcal/gram
There are 28.4 grams in an ounce; 16 oz in a pound; so 4*28.4*16 = ~1817 Calories

So a little more than half, strangely enough, since fat has more than twice the calories per gram - one pound of fat should be over 4000 calories.